A question for the Shadow Cabinet – are you knocking on doors in your constituency?

After I revealed earlier this week that the contact rate in South Shields prior to the recent by-election may have been as low as 0.2%, it became clear that this wasn’t a problem confined to just one constituency – a lack of doorstep campaigning seems to be the accepted practice in all too many “safe” Labour seats. It’s presumably the same for other parties too.

Over the past few days I’ve been inundated of stories about moribund constituency parties where campaigning – of any sort – is the exception rather than the norm.

I can understand why some MPs allow their local party to atrophy – especially where the party has a huge majority – but there’s a real responsibility to engage with people in a way that is about more than just winning elections. And of course, when a by-election comes along, even a “safe” seat can be vulnerable if there’s no organisation or institutional memory in place.

What I’d really like to see if the party whipping MPs into shape, perhaps by producing a league table showing how much canvassing – or other constituency campaigning work – has been done by each MP. Sure, some might argue that such a league table, were it leaked to our opponents, would show our weaknesses. But perhaps we should be more concerned with eliminating weakness than we should be with the Tories or the Lib Dems knowing such a weakness exists.

A good place to start would be with the Shadow Cabinet. These are the highest representatives in the party, and they should speak with the authority of the people they seek to represent. Many of them are also have healthy majorities in safe seats. Yet if our shadow cabinet are routinely ignoring their obligation to go out and speak to the people who have elected them to parliament, what right have they to speak on behalf of the people?

I don’t care how busy you are – an MP can knock on doors, or head out and do some other form of campaigning, for as little as an hour a month unless (perhaps) they are the Prime Minister. Doing so keeps you grounded, keeps you honest and keeps you sharp to the concerns of people outside of the political bubble.

So I’m offering all members of the Shadow Cabinet the opportunity to share their contact rate – or other information about their local campaigning – with us at LabourList. For some this will be a pleasure (Vernon Coaker, for example, is famously strong at local campaigning), for others – it might be a source of shame.

Either way – I look forward to hearing from them.

Update: A few contact rates for Shadow Cabinet members coming in – here’s what we have so far

Stephen Twigg – 36%
Margaret Curran – 45%
Ivan Lewis – 60%

Update: The Labour Whips Office appear to have sent out the following message to the Shadow Cabinet: “LabourList are conducting a survey on contact rates. As usual the advice is that it is not in the best interests of the Labour Party to respond to surveys.”

I’ll tell you something that’s not in the best interests of the Labour Party – senior MPs who haven’t campaigned properly in their local area. What do they have to hide?